I’m the worst kind of person. I don’t even deserve to be comforting Sawyer, but I’d never leave her alone, especially not here, and not now.
“I can’t believe it…he was going to propose.” She chokes the words out between sobs. “Ask me to marry him. And I-I was freaked out. And I didn’t answer the phone. And I—” She cries into my shoulder, unable to finish.
“Shh. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“No,” she gasps. “This is my fault…all of it. I’m a terrible person. I was with you while he—while he had this—” She holdsup the ring box, her hand shaking so badly it almost falls. “What kind of person does that?”
“Stop.” I pull back just enough to look at her face. Tears stream down her cheeks, her blue eyes glassy. I can’t let her suffer like this. “Sawyer, stop. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“How can you say that?” She shakes her head. “How can you say that when?—”
“Because it’s my fault. Not yours. Mine.”
Her mouth opens to speak but closes again before anything comes.
“I knew about the ring, you know that.” I say, my body feeling like an inferno the more truth I let slip. “He showed it to me at the restaurant. Asked me what I thought. If you’d like it.” I let out a bitter laugh. “And I sat there and told him it was perfect while wishing I could throw it in the fucking lake.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I wanted you on that ride next to me. I wanted—” I stop myself before I say too much. “And then the ride malfunctioned and he died and I got exactly what I wanted. So if anyone’s a terrible person here, it’s me.”
“That’s not…You didn’t cause the accident?—”
“Neither did you.” I cup her face with both hands, forcing her to look at me. “The ride malfunctioned. That’s it. That’s all this is. You didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill him. It just...happened.”
As my words float out into the air I know I don’t believe them. I’ll never fully let myself off the hook.
She’s silent taking them in, still crying, still shaking. Then she speaks so quietly I almost don't hear her. “Maybe we’re both to blame.”
The words hang between us thick, like I could reach out and touch them.
“Maybe,” I whisper.
“I wanted to be with you too. On the ride.” My eyes focus on the way she rolls her bottom lip between her teeth. “After it…always.” Fresh tears spill down her cheeks. “What does that make me?”
My heart races. “It makes you human.”
“That’s not good enough.”
I rub my thumb across her bottom lip. “But it’s true.”
She’s so close, her warm breath shakes out against my face. I can see every tear caught in her thick lashes, can smell laundry detergent on the hoodie she’s wearing mixed with her shampoo underneath.
“Knox,” she whispers and it feels like she’s reached into my chest and squeezed tight enough to stop my heart. I shouldn’t move closer. I know there’s nothing but destruction for both of us. But fuck, I want to cross that line more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
I glance at the engagement ring, still clutched in her fist.
But neither of us moves away.
“We shouldn’t,” I say, as my thumbs stroke her cheeks, wiping away tears. I know I sound like I’m trying to convince myself more than her.
“I know.”
“This is wrong.”
“I know.”
“Sawyer,” I breathe.
